Waking Gods (Themis Files, #2)

by Sylvain Neuvel

I know I don’t belong here, now. I’m…out of sync. It’s a familiar feeling, now that I think about it. Every so often—maybe two or three times a year—I would get this anxiety rush. I’d usually be really tired, maybe had too much coffee, and I’d start feeling…I never knew how to describe it. Every second that goes by feels like nails on a chalkboard. It usually lasts a minute or two but it feels like you’re just a tiny bit—half a second or so—out of sync with the universe. I was never able to really explain it, so I don’t know if I’m the only one who ever felt this. I suppose not, but that’s how I feel every minute of every day now, only that half second is getting longer and longer.

His name is Thomas Henry Huxley. He was a scientist in the early days of modern biology. He said: “The known is finite, the unknown infinite; intellectually we stand on an islet in the midst of an illimitable ocean of inexplicability. Our business in every generation is to reclaim a little more land.”

Scientists are like children: They always want to know everything, they all ask too many questions, and they never follow orders to the letter.

—Why would they travel all this way only to leave after a couple days? —Interestingly enough, it is probably what we would do. At least, it is what we would have done half a century ago. It might be an urban legend, but I was told that in the fifties, the US military started thinking about what it would do if we encountered sentient alien life. They came up with a seven-step procedure, starting with remote surveillance. We would then secretly visit the alien world, and if we felt our weaponry and technology to be more advanced than the aliens, we would begin a series of brief landings during which we would gather samples of plant and animal life, perhaps abducting an alien or two in the process. After that, we would make our existence known to as many aliens as possible, and if we were satisfied with their reaction, we would make contact.

—My understanding of space travel is very limited, but if traveling from their home world to our planet takes several years, or decades, they might not be aware of what has transpired recently, or that we have discovered the robot they buried. This may sound stupid to you— —No! Not at all. You’re a little off. It takes about ten days to get from there to here. But you’re absolutely right in that they’re probably completely unaware of what happened during that time. If you did anything really bad last week, you might just get away with it. —Making fun of my ignorance will not stop me from asking. I am trying to prevent a war. There must be something you can tell me that will increase the likelihood of a peaceful resolution. —Do you like squirrels? —I ask for your help in preventing a conflict of apocalyptic proportions and your answer is: “Do you like squirrels?” —Yes. I have a good squirrel story. —Of course. By all means. —Squirrels can hide thousands of nuts every year. They— —What species? —Does it matter? —There are several species. Some bury nuts individually in multiple locations, others will stockpile them aboveground. —I don’t know. The grey ones with the bushy tail. The ones in the parks. They bury thousands of nuts every fall and they look for them during winter when they get hungry. Squirrels have tiny brains, though. They can’t remember where they hid them all, so— —Studies suggest they recover about one-quarter of the nuts they bury, but— —That’s what I said. ...

—Do not sell yourself short, Mr. Couture. You have proven yourself quite capable as a soldier in the past. But I did not have an armed assault in mind. A mutiny would be, shall we say, frowned upon, under the circumstances. I was thinking more along the lines of the European labor movement of the nineteenth century. —Yes. We should unionize. That’ll show them. —In the late 1800s, the French anarchist Émile Pouget submitted a report at a labor congress in France in which he advocated for work slowdowns, a strategy that had proved successful in Britain. The British unionists referred to the slowdown policy as Ca’Canny, which did not translate directly into French. However, the French had long likened slow and clumsy work to that of a man wearing wooden shoes, or sabots, and Pouget, in his report, coined the term sabotage. —You want me to break the boat? —If done properly, it would delay your arrival and offer plausible deniability. Please accept my apology. —For what? —For giving French lessons to a French-speaking linguist. —Oh, I didn’t know. I never studied French etymology. —I am aware of that. I still find it impolite to give anyone lessons in their field of specialty.

—Don’t talk to me! I’m pissed. I wanna get out of here, but you don’t wanna hurt the guys that were shooting at us a minute ago. Now I’m stuck in a hole for God knows how long. —You’re smiling. —Maybe. But I’m pissed. —You’re happy. —I…I guess I am. —Kara? —What? Why are you grinning? —Kara Resnik, you have made me— —Oh no! You’re gonna propose now? —I— —Stop. Stop. We don’t want the same things. I’m not ready for the whole family thing. —I know. —No kids. —I know. —Do you really wanna grow old with just grumpy old me? —No offense, Kara, but I don’t think either of us will get to grow old, especially if we’re together. The only question is: Do I wanna die young with anyone else?

—It was a surprisingly large affair. I did not think Ms. Resnik—excuse me, Mrs. Resnik— —She’ll kill you if you call her that. —That either of them would want a traditional ceremony, let alone that they would indulge in such a lavish celebration afterwards. —Oh, weddings aren’t about the bride and groom. You propose, or you say yes, because you love the other person. You start imagining your perfect wedding, a small thing outdoors, intimate, with just the people you’re closest to. It takes about a week after you announce it before you realize that the proposal was really the only part of getting married that was about you. The wedding itself? That’s all about your mother, your aunt who’s dying, how it’ll look like you’re taking sides if this second cousin you never met isn’t invited.

If I have, in any way, willingly or not, led you to believe I was remotely interested in your opinion of me, it was my mistake. It will not happen again.

—I don’t think so. It’s 237 feet tall—a foot taller than the last one—and it’s standing in the middle of the dirt field the last one left behind. There’s nothing not menacing about it. —Is this a live feed? —Yes. Why? —I am wondering what those tiny white lights are. —All around it, I know. I asked myself that same question. There weren’t as many five minutes ago. —Can you zoom in? —No, that’s not our satellite. —We should try television. It has been there long enough for the press to arrive. —It’s the middle of the night in London. —People must be aware of its presence. It stands in the one place in the city that is not full of lights. It must be visible for miles, like a lighthouse. —There. It’s on CNN. It’s a lot more impressive from the ground. —I do not see any lights around it. —That must have been taken with a cellphone. I’ll try other channels. There has to be some real footage somewhere— —Stop. There. —Wh…They’re people! People holding candles. There must be a thousand of them. This is so— —Inspiring. —I was gonna say stupid. —The last time the aliens were in London, we sent the army to greet them. —We didn’t send the army to attack them. —Whatever the reason, the military got involved and we all know how it ended. These people are trying candles and peace signs. Instead of following their most basic instinct and running away, they are trying to make peace with an alien species. I find it extremely courageous. —I don’t doubt their courage, but there’s a good reaso...

While I am reasonably confident you are not “the chosen one,” you are without doubt one who has been chosen.

—If Mr. Couture were here, he would find an appropriate quote from a fictional character. As I do not share his enthusiasm for science fiction, I will simply tell you that “trying” suggests you lack confidence in your ability to succeed. Find Themis. —What? I don’t get it. What would Vincent say? —Find Themis and ask him.

I wish I could tell you more. I didn’t exactly have a lot of time to chat. There are robots showing up every ten minutes. —There are more? —Yeah. Eleven of them! Haven’t you heard? This is a goddamn invasion! We ran out of Titan names on the last one. —Where are they? —You already know about the one in London. The next one appeared on the tracks at Shinjuku Station in Tokyo around 4:00 A.M. About five minutes later, one popped up in Jakarta. There are two in India, one in Delhi, one in Calcutta.

Niooooo it should have been in Bombay!

You will not die of pain, but you will never get used to it. Pain is unique in that it does not show habituation or neural adaptation, like smell, or touch.

Parents feel a great deal of responsibility for the way their children turn out, but there is very little a parent can do that will remotely rival the influence a friend or lover can have.

What I do, it is…It takes a particular mindset. It is not unlike law enforcement in that regard. I started out thinking I could remove the bad from the world one piece at a time until there was none left. The world, unfortunately, does not work that way. Perhaps it needs a certain equilibrium to function properly. Whatever the reason, it soon became obvious that what I had set out to do was very much like digging a hole in the mud. Remove a bad man from power, and a year later the person you put in his place is just as corrupt. If a policeman stops a drunken man from beating on his wife, what are the odds he will never have to go back? Can he really prevent anything, or is he just delaying the inevitable? I came to realize that good and evil were out of my reach, that time was the only thing I had any control over. I could buy time, create intervals. I could not truly make the world a better place, but I could make part of it a better place for a short while. I came to peace with that. Some cannot. As I said, it takes a particular mindset. But as you grow older, you realize there will come a time you cannot keep digging, and the idea that your hole in the mud will fill itself completely, as if you never existed, becomes harder to bear. Permanence is the Holy Grail in my line of work. I saw this as an opportunity to leave a mark.

Now go home. Go home and tell your family you love them. Tell them ten times, a hundred times. Do it while you can. And if we somehow survive this, keep doing it. In the end, it’s all that really matters.

I keep forgetting if you’re reading this, then it’s a good bet I’m dead. It’s hard to write as a dead person. What can I tell you? Hi! I’m dead! I hope you’re not! Best, Kara.

You know I love you, right? I don’t tell you often because your ego would get even bigger and maybe implode and create a black hole. I don’t want to destroy the universe. But I do. Love you, that is.